Kill or Be Killed

by Casey Scheinler

I lay rigid in my bed, paralyzed with fear, desperately trying to calm the sound of blood rushing through my ears as I strained to hear the noise again. There it was, I was sure of it, the front door closing ever so softly, like someone was trying to be very, very quiet. How did they know this was my first time alone in the house, had they been staking it out just laying low like a tiger waiting for the perfect moment to pounce? I lay motionless, my mind rushing one thousand miles a second as I tried to decide the best way to defend myself and take down a psychopathic killer. Slowly, silently, I reached down to find the mini screwdriver on my bed stand that I had just set there earlier in the day when trying to fix my jewelery box, and clenching it in my fist with the phillips head pointing towards the approaching murderer, I lay waiting for slightest sound of the fiends footsteps on the stairs as he headed towards my bedroom, preparing to execute unspeakable horrors upon me. Three tensely silent hours later, and with no signs of a killer in my home, let alone my bedroom, I though, perhaps, it might be possible that I dreamt I heard a noise.